Time division multiplexed (TDM) data communication equipment currently employed by telecommunication network service providers is typically configured to accommodate a prescribed number of data communication channels or time slots, respectively associated with various customer premises devices (e.g., data terminal equipments or DTES). As a non-limiting illustration, a T1 network link contains twenty-four DS0 channels or time slots, within each of which eight bits of data are serially transmitted.
At a hub site, where routing calls among various users of the network is controlled, it is necessary to provide for the cross-connect or interchange of time slots/channels among respective ports of the TDM routing equipment. This may sometimes entail the transfer of a set or group of successively contiguous time slots of the TDM link porting one (source) circuit card to the TDM link porting another (destination) circuit card. Because conventional serial bus-based TDM routing equipment employs bus segmentation, which is not designed to route a multiple DS0 call across multiple serial bus segments, then if the TDM segment of the latter (destination) circuit card does not have the requisite number (or segment) of successively contiguous time slots, servicing the calls associated with the channels of interest is impaired, and utilization of the available bandwidth of the TDM link is reduced, until the required set of contiguous time slots become available. Because conventional serial bus-based TDM routing equipment is based upon symmetrical data transfer, full utillzation of bandwidth is not realized with new asymmetrical data communication technologies.